FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics 152
MacRonin sends us to the Washington Post for a story about the FBI's plans for a large biometric identification database. The Post also has a chart detailing the characteristics of the different methods of identification. We discussed the ethics of a similar situation a few months ago. Quoting the Post:
"Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law."
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
It really amazes me how everybody seems to think that more information is key, whereas I think that *better* information is key. Datamining really is an advanced way of searching for the needle in that haystack and if you throw tons of non-relevant data in there you've just made your job that much harder. The big trick is to try to increase the quality of the data without missing important bits. Trawling all the grandmothers credit card transactions is not going to increase the S/N ratio.
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
From the story:
Orwell was an optimist. The slide into complete loss of privacy, personal liberties, and any chance at atonement for making mistakes, intentional or otherwise, is far more insidious then he ever dreamed — and it is going to be far more complete than he imagined. Our country stands for nothing; we are powerless to change anything; the politicians and their lapdog agencies run rampant. I am ashamed.
From your post:
The data is relevant, don't kid yourself. Your retina print, fingerprints, blood type, genetic details... what tracking these things in this way really means is a profound hardening of classes; felons will always be felons, that time you got caught throwing toilet paper on the courthouse will never, ever come off your record, your political affiliations in college will always, always constrain your future job opportunities and more.
A society that cannot forgive is a society that is lost, as far as I am concerned. A society that marks people specifically so that it can class them has reached the approximate social level of pond scum. There is little - if any - difference between the stars the Jews were forced to wear and a database that marks an individual for an infraction they have long ago atoned for. If the thesis is that one can never atone for an error, mis-step or intentional antisocial act, then it is flawed to begin with.
None of which will stop, or even slow down, this trend. When every liberty is up for trading in return for a claim of improved security, when every freedom is deemed too risky to the body politic, when every over-stated threat causes the public to whimper and keep their children locked inside, the Rubicon has well and truly been crossed. Felons! Terrorists! Pedophiles! Pornography! Drugs! None of these "threats" do a fraction of the damage as the "solutions" America has come to, and is working towards.
Orwell was indeed an optimist.
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It's a big disappointment to me how the USA has gone on from a sort of example for the rest of the world, to becoming more and more like Russia in the 80's.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Informative)
It is interesting to note that Total Information Awareness (TIA) components were well underway long before the events of 9/11/01 in America. Whether the FBI renames Carnivore to something else, the way the TIA was stealthily renamed and distributed (the illegal wiretapping of the nation within the first month of the Bush administration, the privatization of intel operations [now spread beyond 70 private contractors with online inputs to the Bushies], the privatization of Comsat leading to the National Applications Office, the final dot in the array - the use of satellites to spy overall on the American citizenry) among a variety of components, with inputs from NSA, NGA, etc., everything is now assembled and in place for TOTAL CONTROL. The Corporate Fascist State has won, end of story.....
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For any specific purpose any piece of information is more or less relevant.
The problem with biometric data is that it isnt particularly unique. Biometry salesmen will try to convince you that their identifiers are special, but the fact of the matter is that evolution doesnt necessarily select for unique identifiers. We still have significant amounts of DNA in common with flatworms, nevermind other people.
All biometrics available today have atrocious error rates, in
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You're right, that was overly simplifying and skipping a number of steps. The more extensive reasoning goes like this; as subgroups and subcultures in urban settings often have a short and relatively close familial distribution these factors will strongly affect the statistical probability of matches within that subgroup. Not because of phenotype but because of close interrelation
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Assuming he can be elected - which is a stretch - having gotten to the post, he'll be able to end the Iraq war. He'll be able to modify a fair amount of our foreign policy, this is an area that a president has a fair amount of autonomy in. However, with a comprised-as-usual congress and senate, most of the rest of the effect he will be able to have will consist of fireside chats with the public; even vetos will be easily defeated by politicia
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The point of voting for him is to get the Iraq war over; to have a president that will engage the public in four years of constitutionally grounded dialog; to have a president that will act with honor and integrity; to have a president that will act to undo the executive orders that the previous ones have inflicted upon us; to have a president th
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Now Joe Kennedy obviously purchased his son's presidential election utilizing the help of Mafia elements, Texas oilmen, etc., but John either didn't get the memo or ignored his father and worked primarily on behalf of the citizenry.
Which is why
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So, the people that come together to form a business, or that dig into their wallets to help fund a business, or the people that decide to try to get a job from and end up working with that business, aren't the "PEOPLE"? Who are they, then? If you don't like the idealogical posture of a large business, just don't work there, and don't buy stuff from them.
If you
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You realize, right, that the bookeeping of large, publicly traded corporations is (thanks to measures like SarbOx) under incredible public scrutiny? And that a public official doesn't just take a check from a company and deposit it in his personal account. Donations go to their campaigns - and those are in very small amounts (Exxon can't write a million-dollar check d
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Here's the deal. I support Ron Paul not because he would do any of that (He couldn't even if he wanted to because of congress) but he would most likley veto everything and cause a government shut down.
The problem is that congress simply passes laws non-stop without much reading or thinking about what they are passing. Doesn't mat
Re:Sigh (Score:4, Informative)
Because they're looking to collect, and unify, all the information about each citizen. Fact: they're trying to use national ID cards to pin your identity down; Fact: they're trying to use databases to track your biometrics and link them to the cards; Fact: Our affiliations (political and otherwise) are being tracked by both government agencies and by commercial enterprises - and have been for years, just ask those poor bastards in 1950's Hollywood who got hauled up before McCarthy; this is nothing new. Fact: Watching these elections, what do we see but people's college behaviors and affiliations dragged up out of the blue? Hillary roomed with lesbians. Oooo! What about people who are trying to pursue normal lives and suddenly "wikipedia has a FELON as a CFO!", where the hell did that come from, and why is it even relevant? Did she screw up her work? No. Was she even accused of doing anything wrong? No. It's just past behavior being brought up to haunt current life and lock someone into a role they may very well have no part in. You can't be rehabilitated, you're low class and you will STAY low class. You don't think tracking is going on? Called Experian or one of its brethren lately? Seen your FBI file? Are you aware of the no-fly, no-buy, no-bank-account lists, all sans anything even remotely resembling due process? Think your email is private? When's the last time you transacted more than 10 grand at the bank? Do you realize that each of those transactions gets reported to the feds, and yes indeed, TRACKED? Talked to anyone overseas? Think that call wasn't monitored for keywords? Carnivore ring a bell? How about Echelon? Are you one of those clueless folk who think your SSN was used only for your retirement, as promised?
Buddy, the only reason you're "really sorry" is because you've got your head deep in the sand. But I agree, you are one sorry excuse for an informed person. You can fix it, though.
No, I base my arguments upon facts in the record. Current and recent behaviors and data; basically ince3 the early 1900s until today, you can see all manner of problems that are government related. Everything I talked about there is objective fact. There's plenty more where that came from, too.
Yes. Why would you think that? Are you paranoid? It is a very large collection of traitors, bent upon sundering the constitution either knowingly or otherwise. They aren't an "organization", they are an unaffiliated collection of people with similar goals and similar methods. This doesn't make them any easier to deal with, in fact, it makes it considerably more difficult.
You didn't "forget it", you just aren't together enough to see it. With your head as far in the sand as it is, this comes as no surprise. You should read 1984. Carefully. Then look around you and note the low level preparations going on. The camps [prisonplanet.com] built by the administration's bully-boys, Haliburton. The executive orders that revoke posse comitatus [concordbridge.net], you know about that, right? You know how the commerce clause has been mangled to mean "anything that COULD be be interstate comm
Re:He Loved Big Brother (Score:5, Insightful)
What they fail to comprehend is that the "criminal" element is just as evenly dispersed among government jobs as among the rest of society. When you create a huge power differential between those holding certain government jobs and the rest of us, you are empowering the criminals on that side as well as the good people on that side.
This is what happens when you try to pre-assign people "goodness" ratings based on what job they hold. You end up with a subset of vastly overpowered criminals (granted power by the laws themselves) and no net decrease in what we commonly regard as criminal behavior (killing, theft, fraud, etc.).
The only sane way to assign arbitrary power to law enforcers is to maintain constant oversight of them, in a circular fashion -- the police watch the citizens, the citizens watch a police oversight body, and the police oversight body watches the police. That we neglect to do this is a serious mistake, and it results in a police force that behaves like it can get away with anything ethical or unethical (and often does).
Re:He Loved Big Brother (Score:4, Insightful)
As a member of the general public, I take umbrage with that statement. I'm convinced that there is a far greater representation of the criminal element in modern government (at least, in "elected" and appointed office) than in the rest of society. The same can be said of the business executive level.
When you create a huge power differential between those holding certain government jobs and the rest of us, you are empowering the criminals on that side
Exactly. And that is what I think attracts people with criminal tendencies to government office and to business executive. The power and potential rewards are so great as to act like a magnet to people with criminal tendencies.
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Sure... (Score:2)
Somehwat scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Fingerprint retention (Score:2)
Re:Fingerprint retention (Score:4, Insightful)
That doesn't make it right.
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This is disturbing (Score:5, Insightful)
The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.
You can get arrested for anything these days and now the FBI is going to become your employers watchdog? I've seen some dickish, big brother behavior since 9-11 but this tops the suck pyramid.
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Re:This is disturbing (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies that do business with people, and organizations that hire people, wish to avoid risk. In principle, this is just an extension of the way the American credit system works. There, your entire financial history is available to anyone that wants to decide if you can be trusted. It used to be, the deadbeat customer was a normal cost of doing business. In today's world, companies large and small have the credit bureaus to track us for them. However, at least there if you keep your nose clean and wait enough years, your past misdeeds will no longer haunt you. Expect that limit to be removed at some point, because obviously people that can't handle money well are threats to national security.
Make no mistake, the underlying sponsors of this unConstitutional boloney are corporate. From the extension of copyrights to longer credit histories to biometric tracking, this is all about the corporate world wanting to minimize its exposure to risk. The fact that it plays right into the hands of certain power hungry politicians and their appointed/unelected officials is just unfortunate for us.
What I find fascinating (Score:2)
Make no mistake, the underlying sponsors of this unConstitutional boloney are corporate.
Is that your standard Republican and Democrat voter both believe that you can have a government able to create infinite amounts of money and not have this happen.
Money is power. It is goods and services. With it you can enact your will, without it, you cannot.
The fact that it plays right into the hands of certain power hungry politicians and their appointed/unelected officials is just unfortunate for us.
It really has nothing to do with chance.
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Fascism ? Or not ? (Score:3)
equal right to see your bosses' records? (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, it'll allow you to see, at the interview stage, if you'll be working for a bunch of crooks.
Second, if companies do start to take "brushes with the law" into account for career advancement, it sounds like a relative in law-enforcement could be the fast track to promotion.
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Re:This is disturbing (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, real people, no matter who they are, are only good at a limited number of things. A person who is a whiz in chemistry may stink at things like real estate or home repair. You could start a home improvement company or become a real estate agent, but that's not really an option for most people. Plus, you would basically be asking someone like Einstein to drive a truck for a living (although people like you would probably get their jollies off of such a possibility).
The point you are missing is that a decent society does not make the options:
1. Work for FBI-shilling, oppressive company
2. Throw away years of education and expertise, and go work in some field that you are not very good at and that you hate
3. Starve
Chemistry is a good example of what I am talking about. It takes years and a ton of work to get a masters degree in chemistry. You don't have much choice but to work for one of the big companies. Even if you want to start up a small business in one of the chemical areas, you still need some years of experience in the field. Otherwise, you won't know how the real business works, you won't have any contacts to get your business going, and so on. This is true in most professional and technical fields.
Also, in cases like this in actual reality (as opposed to this bizarre one you have concocted from your imbecilic ideologies), there will be no employer that doesn't use and contribute to the FBI database. It will become an "industry standard" practice and there no company will see enough profit in not complying to justify abandoning (or never beginning) this practice. This sort of thing is common and only a drooling idealist would believe otherwise.
U.S.And them (Score:2)
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I don't want to be treated as a criminal before I've even left airside.
Rgds
Damon
Re:U.S.And them (Score:4, Interesting)
We (Americans) are really not all bad. As it turns out most of us dislike the current government, too. It's just that, well, we have a fairly large population of over-religious farmers who tend to vote for all the wrong people. And thus sh*t like this is allowed to happen.
What ARE the Alternatives? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, there is a philosophical conflict raging here. There's obviously people who want to get into the US to perform terrorist acts. This leaves us with 3 choices:
1. Screen every visitor carefully
2. Screen only "suspicious" people (profiling based on religion, etc. and is often considered "racist".)
3
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Are you joking?
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I mis-stated my thought. Thanks for pointing this out. It should have been more like:
"Perhaps you are used to countries that don't (yet) have a terrorist problem, and thus have less intrusive inspections."
Re:What ARE the Alternatives? (Score:4, Insightful)
Under what rock have you been living?
I am not convinced that we are any less safe now then we were a decade or so ago, just much more paranoid. It really says something when a nation of immigrants is deceived into thinking they need to bar foreigners.
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Sorry,
I was typing in a bit of a hurry.
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Well, there's a gap between reality and politicians' view of this issue
How afraid do you have to be???
Re:What ARE the Alternatives? (Score:5, Interesting)
A philosophical conflict? How about a conflict of overdramatized, highly unlikely fearmongering juxtaposed against the loss of civil liberties? The latter seems to be the specific problem.
Living freely includes risk. The problem here is that many people have little or no understanding of the freedoms they had, how hard they were fought for and how unusual it is that they had them in the first place. Most troubling is the fact that they had no clue how easy it was to lose them, and now that they have been lost, recovery is much, much more difficult.
As far as I am concerned, when a criminal - be they terrorist, mugger or politician disobeying the constitution - commits an antisocial act, that criminal should be held accountable for that crime. If the crime is large, the accounting should be large. If society can accept that the crime has been atoned for, then the criminal should get a fresh start. If society cannot accept this, then the criminal should be either put to death or imprisoned permanently. In no case should bystanders or citizens not even involved on any level be inconvenienced by actions nominally taken to ameliorate the criminal act. Sure, this approach involves risk. I prefer the risk. We are a better people when we accept risk in exchange for liberty than when we trade liberty for any illusion of safety gained by treating everyone as if they were a potential criminal.
Your option three is the only honorable option.
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It doesn't work for hardly anyone. I was talking about after-the fact. There is no after the fact for a suicide bomber; but even for a murderer that is reformable - it still doesn't undo the murder. States with death penalties for murder still see murders. So clearly, prevention isn't being accomplished, and it is pointless to even try to look at crime in the sense of prevention at the punishment end.
That turns our attention to the pre-crime state; can we stop
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Over here in the United Kingdom we've had terrorist problems since the 1970s. We've also had a few attacks in the past few years, and the police and security services claim to have prevented several more. We don't fingerprint and iris scan visitors as a matter of course.
One thing to remember is that in the days of the cold war it was the free west vs. the "guilty until proven innocent" east. Policies that get implemented these days in western countries would never have been suggestable 30 years ago, as things like finger printing all visitors would have been something those dirty commies did!
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Don't worry, I can tell the difference between individual Americans and the US govt!
My major client is a large US investment bank and has been for over a decade. American individuals and corporations are fine (well I guess I've met a few bad ones, but in fact mainly of non-US origin strangely), but the 'security theatre' rhetoric of marking all foreigners as potential rapists^Wterrorists is just stupid and pisses off natural friends of the US.
No, I don't trust our (UK) govt with all my sensitive data ei
Re:U.S.And them (Score:5, Insightful)
You go ahead and keep telling yourself that "it's some farmer in the midwest" screwing it all up, though; especially the next time you drive through Florida.
Right now on the US National political scene, it would seem that the default "heir" to the Bush/Cheney ideology of fear is Rudolph Giuliani. What city was he mayor of, again? Are there a lot of farmers living in Manhattan?
Oh wait, I must have been confused; it's Illinois where a lot of farmers live, and their state has given us Senator Obama in the Presidential contender line-up.
Please, if you're going to generalize about the American population, try to generalize in a way that makes sense. Here you're telling our foreign friend "hey look, we Americans are cooler than we might appear", yet then you generalize about "farmers". Nice.
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I live in a suburban area, and work in a high tech field, and know very few people who revealed their political feelings in the last 2 presidential elections that did NOT vote for Bush. I'd say I probably know 50 people who revealed their political leanings, and 48 were for Bush.
None are farmers.
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Allow me to add to your merriment with the following Two Fun Facts:
1. The majority of Slashdot users are American born.
2. The majority of those born in the US and of voting age do not understand their voting system.
For anyone following along and
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Funny, I live in Florida. In 2004 52% voted for Bush vs. 47% for Kerry, and that was three years ago. Since then Florida's alignment has moved into Blue territory, at least among the people who actually vote.
Also, for future record, Giuliani does not appeal to New Yorkers. He appeals to those who felt they identified the most with Bush last time. New
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The Japanese government is even worse. They now fingerprint, photograph, and question visitors and returning residents not only when they first enter the country, but again during all subsequent re-entries [debito.org] . And this is in addition to the mandatory re-entry permits (3000 yen fee!), mandatory registration of non-citizens at their local city hall, and mandatory carrying of Alien Registration Cards on one's person at all times. Don't think you're free to wander about the country after your ordeal with immi
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How the... (Score:3, Funny)
What am I supposed to do? Get tin-foil-sunglasses?
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Naw, just cut out your eyes and burn the remanants.
Problem solved! (well, except for the whole "I'm blind!" thing...)
Exabytes of RAM ... (Score:1)
CC.
I'm going to sell the FBI Phrenology Biometrics! (Score:2)
It's a great way to profit from the coming federal contracts! It doesn't matter to them that the "Science" was debunked a century ago... We'll dress it up with some new buzzwords and make millions!
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So we're going to see the Ministry of Silly Walks?
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If you're walking unusually, you must be doing it to throw off the tracking software, and if you're trying to throw off the tracking, then you must be intending to commit a crime, citizen.
I actually worked a bit on some of the theory behind gait recognition when I was a student. Interesting from a technical perspective but scary as hell in terms of what it could be used for. Other than the obvious of course. The classic example of legitimate use is a ban
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Brushes with the law? (Score:1)
What change? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Have fun picking a new jailer.
Silly Citizen... (Score:1)
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The gov't, of course. The employers at least pay you money. The gov't _takes_ your money, and then uses it against you!
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where's my troll mod? (Score:5, Insightful)
no, the average american won't care, because the average american, when given news like this, doesn't see a big downside to this. when told the downside to this as displayed here in some posts, they will think the average slashdot poster has been watching too many paranoid hollywood movies
now give my troll mod for not toeing the party line here
yawn
Sad but true (Score:4, Insightful)
A few false arrests and multi-year imprisonments because of a software bug or flaw in the biometric database? Just the price to be paid for security.
That particular way of thinking sickens me, but it's quite prevalent. Many people (my mother included) would far rather see 10 innocents imprisoned than one guilty man go free. Because they're terrorists or something.
I try to explain that I know have Iranian family on my father's side and next time it could be me that's falsely accused of associating with and aiding people (incorrectly) thought to be terrorists. But that doesn't seem to get through, that there could ever be a mistake. Somewhere in the back of a lot of folks minds there's this strong conviction that mistakes like that just don't happen, despite multiple high profile examples to the contrary, and even if they do, it doesn't matter because they don't think it can happen to them. Because why would it? I'm a good person, why would the government arrest me?
At that point I usually give up trying to argue and go back to mourning the state of the world. No, it doesn't win me any points, realising that the average person is about as questioning of authority as a faithful puppy, it is unfortunately the true state of the world though.
it is important in this world not to blindly trust (Score:2)
the american government is not satan incarnate. it is also not the paragon of virtue. it is mostly bumbling bureaucrats who mean well
so when people go at the american government like they are talking about a sneaky evil out to enslave all of mankind, they sound like retarded matrix fanboys, not intelligent wary citizens out protecting our freedoms
did you hear that? i
I hope you do get modded to oblivion (Score:2)
And nowhere did I say it was.
"it is also not the paragon of virtue. it is mostly bumbling bureaucrats who mean well"
Agreed, partially. It's also made up of people who specific moral agendas and biases, prejudices and (worse, IMHO) those who are willing to sell out the people they are representing for their own political, social or financial gain.
"so when people go at the american government like they are talking about a sneaky evil out to enslave all of mankin
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blind trust is stupid (Score:2)
in this life, you can suffer from too much blind trust for authority. absolutely 100% true
but equally true, which escapes many people here, is that you can also suffer from a poverty in your ability to trust anything remotely government like
this is not wisdom, it is a deficit in reasoning
Well... You have an election coming (Score:2)
Law and order types... (Score:1)
That's the thing, mistakes are made and if the Government starts acting
Expect Leadership to change in the next election (Score:2)
Bigger and Better Things (Score:2)
Didn't They Shut Down a Similar Database? (Score:1)
The same FBI..... (Score:3, Interesting)
This will breed a new class of crimes (Score:2, Interesting)
Using biometric data is a dangerous road IMHO. If biometric authentication is performed under very tightly controlled conditions then it may be difficult to spoof but the more widespread it becomes the less controlled the conditions will be (the more people involved the higher the chance of stupid people overseeing the process). You can tighten up a server. even Windows (-; so that it is very difficult to penetrate, but when you have billions of I.T. admins running servers you're going to have some looseni
CheapID- A Secure, Open Src, Private, Biometric ID (Score:3, Informative)
From http://guptaoption.com/4.SIAB-ISA.php [guptaoption.com]
This paper shows how we can manage large scale biometrics databases and increase the amount of privacy we have from government snooping while still having a secure society.
The basic crux of this paper is that you can separate the biometrics database, which simply identifies your physical body, and isn't necessarily any more intrusive than Flickr or any other online photo sharing site, and the reputation database, which stores things like your credit rating, any criminal record, and the suspicions of various government agencies about your intentions.
So when you do something like rent a car, you give them a token which has your face on it. They match your face to the token, and say "ok, this token is valid." But the token doesn't have your name, or your SSN, or anything else on it: it's totally sterile. But if you steal the car, they take the token to court, as well as the proof you gave it to them, and the court uses the token to get your name, SSN and other details.
If all that FBI or other government biometrics database stored was tokens, and it required a court order to go from a match in the biometrics database to a name and street address, I think we'd have a fair balance between civil liberties and security. A database of pictures of faces or fingerprints is not the intrusive part: it's the connecting of your face or your fingerprint to your background that is the intrusion, and we can separate the two databases and require a court order (and a crypto key) to reconnect them.
Cheap DNA scanners are coming. We've have to fix how we handle biometric data as a society before they arrive.
The FBI has my fingerprint (Score:2)
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If someone was to take my fingerprints now (either with permission or against my will) and record them as "mine", what would be the situation when my hands healed? Would I forever be denied access to me because of the discrepancy, or would there be two me's, with different fingerprints - b
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Look at chip credit cards. You cannot retrieve a PIN from them, even though an encrypted and hashed version resides on the chip. You can't even get the hash; just an answer, yes or no, whether what is presented is correct or not. I would presume that any sensible passport scheme would be much the same. Am I wrong?
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No F*cking Way... (Score:2)
1. Data isn't shared or otherwise capable of being shared. Biometric systems from the gui all the way back to the template that's stored is proprietary. Short-story, biometric systems are a GIANT bl
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It's tomorrow that people are more concerned about.
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No, more like
A.E. van Vogt, Computerworld, 1983 (... the story of our world under the cold and emotionless eye of the almighty computers
CC.
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Bah, I am comforted by Bradley's Bromide:
If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee. That will do them in.
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It is indeed usually futile to do raw searches based on such info, but if you combine multiple factors from other sources (empl
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I wonder how well it would go over if he took money from radical Islamic fundamentalists.
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No, just a different '"iris" scan :-). (Score:2)
And so will accidental dietary changes.. excuse me
Ugh. Must have been something I ate